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Place dossier plate
SheetAR-BALD-KNOB-AR · Bald Knob, AR 2,545 pop · income 18th pct
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Bald Knob
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Bald Knob on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Cave City · lowest
33,672
Cave City · lowest
33,672 median HH income
19.0% of the leader · rank #1
Bloomsburg · near
49,096
Bloomsburg · near
49,096 median HH income
27.6% of the leader · rank #2
Brilliant · near
49,100
Brilliant · near
49,100 median HH income
27.6% of the leader · rank #3
Bald Knob · this city
49,107
Bald Knob · this city
49,107 median HH income
27.6% of the leader · rank #4
La Plata · near
49,107
La Plata · near
49,107 median HH income
27.6% of the leader · rank #5
Perezville · near
49,109
Perezville · near
49,109 median HH income
27.7% of the leader · rank #6
Goshen · highest
177,604
Goshen · highest
177,604 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Bald Knob on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 2,545.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Bald Knob - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Bald Knob places in the 18th percentile for household income and the 25th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
18th
percentile, household income
23rd
percentile, home value
3rd
percentile, median rent
25th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Bald Knob, AR
2,545 people live in Bald Knob, Arkansas - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Bald Knob brings in $49,107 a year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 18.9%. Bald Knob's housing stock carries a median value of $136,500, and the median resident age is 38.3 years. Educational attainment runs 12.6% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 50.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 1 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 80% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 2351.5 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, near the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Arkansas run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Arkansas scores 86.9 (Well Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $944 per month. Monthly utility costs average around $210 across Arkansas, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 55.5 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Bald Knob's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from schools and households to housing and income to work and mobility to reported crime to population change to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Bald Knob, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Bald Knob?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 12.6% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
How far does income reach against housing in Bald Knob?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 18.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
What does the journey to work look like in Bald Knob?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 83.8%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Which cities make useful reference points for Bald Knob?
Within Arkansas, the closest population matches are England (2,568 residents, $47,379 income); Harrisburg (2,574 residents, $52,077 income); Bono (2,575 residents, $46,897 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Cave City, KY (2,545 residents); Snow Hill, MD (2,545 residents); Dupont, PA (2,545 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Bald Knob?
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2351.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 3% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1395.0
Violent rate
956.6
Total reported rate
2351.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Is Bald Knob growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +25 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 1 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
+1.0%
2025 estimate
2,548
2020 estimate
2,523
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Cost of living A+
86.9 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Household income F
$49,107
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
18.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
12.6%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
957 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bald Knob profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 97/100 (A+) · 86.9 index
Household income: 19/100 (F) · $49,107
Poverty rate: 15/100 (F) · 18.9%
Bachelor's+ share: 14/100 (F) · 12.6%
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 957 /100k
Where Bald Knob sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Bald Knob's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Bald Knob highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Bald Knob, AR (this city): home $136,500, crime 2,352/100k
Cave City, KY : home $108,100, crime 297/100k
Snow Hill, MD : home $194,300, crime 1,123/100k
Dupont, PA : home $142,100, crime 975/100k
Morris, AL : home $233,600, crime 491/100k
England, AR : home $92,600, crime 2,098/100k
Harrisburg, AR : home $112,700, crime 2,448/100k
Bono, AR : home $143,100, crime 2,030/100k
Goshen, AR : home $616,800, crime 381/100k
How does Bald Knob compare to other US cities?
Bald Knob measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income18% higher than other cities
Home value23% pricier than other cities
Median rent3% pricier than other cities
Safety25% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Arkansas, Bald Knob ranks #102 of 160 Arkansas cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Bald Knob against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Arkansas only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Arkansas-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Bald Knob near the bottom of Arkansas's cities
Among the 524 Arkansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Bald Knob ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Bald Knob only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#235 of 495
53rd percentile in Arkansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 524
0th percentile in Arkansas
Median Home Value
#154 of 482
68th percentile in Arkansas
Poverty Rate
#157 of 524
69th percentile in Arkansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#283 of 524
45th percentile in Arkansas
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Arkansas only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
18th percentile nationally for median household income · 25th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Bald Knob's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Bald Knob's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Bald Knob's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$136,500Among the most affordablemore affordable than 77% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Bald Knob's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,472 of 15,516
More affordable than 65% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#4,760 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.8×, Bald Knob sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,472 of 15,516 and #4,760 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$49,107Bald Knob, AR median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Bald Knob, AR median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Bald Knob, AR.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)12.6%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)18.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)50.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
2,545
Median Income
$49,107
Median Home Value
$136,500
Median Age
38.3
Poverty Rate
18.9%
Labor force participation
50.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
12.6%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2351.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
956.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1395.0
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Bald Knob's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
2,523 residents
2021
2,529 residents
2022
2,536 residents
2023
2,512 residents
2024
2,534 residents
2025
2,548 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
1
housing units authorized
Single-Family
1
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.4
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
5
5
0
$0.9M
2020
5
5
0
$0.9M
2021
4
4
0
$0.3M
2022
2
2
0
$0.3M
2023
12
12
0
$0.8M
2024
1
1
0
$0.3M
Permit volume decreased 80% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
83.8%
Carpool
12.0%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
2.5%
Work from Home
1.7%
Based on 950 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Arkansas statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $210
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Arkansas at $210 (electricity about $110 , water and sewer about $42 ).
These are Arkansas statewide averages, not a meter reading for Bald Knob. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Arkansas's BEA cost-of-living index is 86.9 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Bald Knob is $944/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Arkansas statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 55.5 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Arkansas statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Bald Knob sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Bald Knob compares to similar-size Arkansas cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.